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Terex

Minecraft bought by Microsoft for 2.5 Billion dollars

25 posts in this topic

Vaguely news-worthy. Not that this changes anything for us and the development of TFC, right? 

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worst case scenario: microsoft destroys everything that made minecraft worthwhile, make back their money in a year but squeeze the life out of it until it withers into nothingness when players get bored of the dead community

 

best case scenario: they devote resources (people) to helping mojang do what they do better- maybe a mod API or larger conventions or more conventions. Stuff like that.

 

Seeing as one of those involves the absolute death of the game, I'm not sure I'm totally happy with this development, but it could still prove positive for the game.

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It's like selling your soul to the devil. I feel sorry for them. People can never have enough money. Why not make 2.5billion when its staring you in the face. Multi billion corporations just buy every one out. When the economy goes to shit, and that paper money you have is worth almost to nothing. They at least own your company. Which is the real value.

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notch was the majority share holder, and he hated being such a symbol. People would complain to him directly when something went wrong with the game just because of who he was, even though he hasn't worked on minecraft in years. Microsoft was the out he'd been looking for, the $2.5 B wasn't the reason, but it's still not something to turn your nose up at.

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It was a little of hypocritical of notch to criticize Oculus rift's acquisition by facebook though. Once faced with that much money though who can blame him. At any rate it's very understandable to want to escape the massive pressure put on him. 

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Vaguely news-worthy. Not that this changes anything for us and the development of TFC, right? 

 

It won't change anything for the development of TFC as long as Microsoft still allows modding of Minecraft. LexManos himself has stated that with the purchase, he has some serious thinking to do about whether or not forge will continue updating. If forge stops updating, then TFC is stuck on whatever the last version they release is.

 

There is also the possibility that Microsoft will try to do like a Minecraft 2.0, that isn't even written in Java so we can't mod it.

 

Semi-worst case scenario, Microsoft makes it impossible to mod newer versions of Minecraft, and TFC will forever be stuck on whatever the last mod-able version was.

Absolute worst case scenario, Microsoft makes it impossible to mod newer versions of Minecraft, and discontinues distribution of the older versions so there is no available Minecraft for TFC to be played on.

 

Edit: Crazy Joking Sarcastic scenario - Absolute worst case scenario happens, but then Bioxx, Dunk and I all win the lottery so that we have more than enough money and free time to make TFC its own game.

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Just my uninformed opinions:

 

The copies of Minecraft have been largely been sold. There is room for expansion, but probably not 2.5 billion worth of expansion in terms of sales. What I think Microsoft bought was more likely the Minecraft brand. Minecraft toys are everywhere. Minecraft costumes. Minecraft cakes. Minecraft legos. A Minecraft movie. Millions of Minecraft customers outside of the game itself.

 

I'm lukewarm as to what their plans are for the game itself. I am neither Microsoft fanboy, nor anti-fanboy. However, Mojang was doing nothing with the game. The content updates were not worthy of a multi-billion dollar company. I have no words for the continuing lack of API. This is a company that had the resources to hire world class talent and rewrite the game from the ground up several times over, if needs be. In light of this, I view the buyout as a positive. If Microsoft "wrecks" the game, there will always be legacy versions out there, even if you have to go underground to get them. More likely, Microsoft will do little to nothing to the actual game. And it's possible that they just might make it better. Mojang sure wasn't.

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So I suppose that by now, most of you have heard the announcement today that Notch has sold Mojang to Microsoft.

 

 

I'm curious about what this will do to the modding community in general and this mod in particular.

 

Microsoft, being the faceless, soulless, corporate monolith that they are will ofcourse, try to monetize every little scrap that they can. I can see it now: Microtransactions! Modding registration fees! Server registration fees. Xbox live gold account in order to unlock online multiplayer. Copyright infringement lawsuits for YouTube videos and cease and desist letters to put an end to Forge, Bukkit, etc.

 

The fact is that every time Microsoft buys a third-party, they destroy that which makes that studio's identity and culture- often the very things which made it valuable in the first place- in order to imprint its own upon it (Bungie, anyone?) In a handful of words, Microsoft has the reverse Midas touch. Anything they touch turns to crap.

 

 

So here's what I want to know- does this change in ownership change any plans going forward for Terrafirmacraft? Is it going to be a "wait and see" thing, or are we looking at jumping ship and heading for the hills before the inevitable shitstorm begins?

Edited by Kittychanley
Merged post over.
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It won't change anything for the development of TFC as long as Microsoft still allows modding of Minecraft.

Five minutes of conspiracy theories.

 

See, Microsoft seems to be making an attempt at trying to monetize MC in one way or another. The one way they can do it is paid content. I don't think paid content can fly if thousands of people across the world can make the same exact content for free, so mods are actually detrimental to the whole monetizing thing.

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I agree with Kitty on the point that MS may move MC away from Java. We're talking about a major rewrite of the code that will undeniably result in a bug-free, optimized game with better graphics, but... modability will be second priority and linux players are left in the dark. Well... i hope it doesn't get to that for the PC, but there will be a MC version for windows phones and tablets.

As to Notch's decision. He's a normal human being. Like you and I. But he made a great invention that attracted people's attention. Notch's letter sounds downright depressive. The community has given him much love (and hate). But why does hate always win? He turned his back to the MC community and not just that, but anything else he will ever do in his life he wants nobody to enjoy it. Not on this large scale, but it's hard to decide who is in and who is out. Notch is not a role-model to be inspired by as it turns out. He didnt take the responsibility. He can do whatever he wants, but I hope other individuals like Dinnerbone and Jeb and all Mojang devs stand as a team and resist any wrong decisions MS will want to take with the product.

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We're talking about a major rewrite of the code that will undeniably result in a bug-free, optimized game with better graphics

I'm sorry, but what rewrite are you talking about? They haven't still fixed a bug that wouldn't let Skype to hide in a tray on win7. That was what, five-ish years of "hard work on rewriting a code"?

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......

Edit: Crazy Joking Sarcastic scenario - Absolute worst case scenario happens, but then Bioxx, Dunk and I all win the lottery so that we have more than enough money and free time to make TFC its own game.

And why would you need a lottery win to make TFC its own game ?  You make games to "win the lottery" as Notch just proved ;)

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It scares me  :unsure: all about the Microsoft-Monster. I hope the TFC-project can go on like yesterday.

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TFC development plows forward as scheduled. We'll continue to update tfc to the most recent version of minecraft available to us. Absolute worst case scenario: microsoft bans people from deobfuscating the source or distributing mods. What happens then? Maybe Bioxx and I have a talk about a standalone. Whether Bioxx and I stop making minecraft mods is separate from whether we stop making terrafirmacraft.

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TFC development plows forward as scheduled. We'll continue to update tfc to the most recent version of minecraft available to us. Absolute worst case scenario: microsoft bans people from deobfuscating the source or distributing mods. What happens then? Maybe Bioxx and I have a talk about a standalone. Whether Bioxx and I stop making minecraft mods is separate from whether we stop making terrafirmacraft.

 

That is extremely encouraging to hear, Dunk. Thank you.

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So Microsoft thinks it will make around $2.5 billion from this by the end of 2nd quarter 2015. Ways they could do this

 

1.) They bought Mojang for the Minecraft brand name and they are going to release Minecraft 2.

 

2.) They want to sell expansion packs/DLC

 

3.) They want to tap into University funding by charging licence fees. Minecraft is a educational tool used in Universities. They could theoretically make lots of money this way. This would of course alienate the gamer crowd, which they wouldn't care about if they only wanted license fees. Somehow I'm doubting they would be able to pull this off with Minecraft 1

 

Somehow I'm thinking the 1st one is by far the smarter move, and the one that Microsoft is most likely to make. #1 and #3 do not bode well for the future of Minecraft 1, which they wouldn't want to support. #2 would basically mean business as usual, possibly with useful features from expansion packs

 

If #1 or #3 is the plan, then the TFC devs need to figure out whether they want to adapt TFC to a open source Minecraft clone that some mod developers are thinking about making if things go bad (notably Cuchaz), or they want to try to make thier own commercial game

 

Just don't go standalone if you don't want to make a sellable product. You aren't the only ones thinking about separating from the Minecraft brand if things go bad. Join a team that will inevitably be created if things go that way

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So Microsoft thinks it will make around $2.5 billion from this by the end of 2nd quarter 2015. Ways they could do this

 

1.) They bought Mojang for the Minecraft brand name and they are going to release Minecraft 2.

 

2.) They want to sell expansion packs/DLC

 

3.) They want to tap into University funding by charging licence fees. Minecraft is a educational tool used in Universities. They could theoretically make lots of money this way. This would of course alienate the gamer crowd, which they wouldn't care about if they only wanted license fees. Somehow I'm doubting they would be able to pull this off with Minecraft 1

 

Somehow I'm thinking the 1st one is by far the smarter move, and the one that Microsoft is most likely to make. #1 and #3 do not bode well for the future of Minecraft 1, which they wouldn't want to support. #2 would basically mean business as usual, possibly with useful features from expansion packs

 

If #1 or #3 is the plan, then the TFC devs need to figure out whether they want to adapt TFC to a open source Minecraft clone that some mod developers are thinking about making if things go bad (notably Cuchaz), or they want to try to make thier own commercial game

 

Just don't go standalone if you don't want to make a sellable product. You aren't the only ones thinking about separating from the Minecraft brand if things go bad. Join a team that will inevitably be created if things go that way

I don't know if either of use actually want to sell TFC. It's always been non-profit with donations accepted and I think it should stay that way.

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The community has given him much love (and hate). But why does hate always win? 

It's not really 'hate won'. Love gave as much, if not more, pressure.

 

He said it himself. When he first made minecraft, he did it for fun. There was not much people looking at it, and he could do it like a fun little side-project, Heck, one of the features in minecraft was practically added as a joke, and the creeper model is actually a messes-up pig model he thought looked cool.

 

Anyways, the point is, he could do whatever he wanted, and not feel any pressure about whether the feature would be 'good' or not.

 

But now with thousands of people loving minecraft and looking at his every words(or tweets, whatever) he's feeling the pressure. He can't just add whatever fits his fancy, and he can't mess up. Everyone expects everything to be perfect, and that kind of pressure made him crack.

 

It has nothing to do with hate or love, it's just that all notch wanted was a fun project he could work on freely the way he wanted, and minecraft just wasn't it anymore.

 

 

Personally, I don't blame him. If I made something just for fun, and suddenly hundreds of people where staring at me getting super-hyped about everything I was about to put into it, I think I would crack under that pressure as well.

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I kind of feel bad for the guy, considering that he lost his passion and felt under so much pressure being an icon. By the same token, I feel sad for the indie-gaming community because we've lost our white knight- the man who proved that it's viable to go without the publishing overlords.

 

 

All that being said, though, integrity doesn't set up your descendants for generations to come. Notch 2, life 0.

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Minecraft was a pretty stangnant pool for years now. The way they chose to manage their company was abysmal. The only things keeping Minecraft afloat were the modding communities and the thousands of servers that run it.

 

This is a huge powder keg that could go anywhere. If Microsoft is smart and use the community to its advantage, they can both give real direction for Minecraft and realise its true potential.

Of course they could be dumb and waste it, but that would be incredibly insane.

 

And yes, Minecraft is easily worth $2.5 billion in the long run.

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So Microsoft thinks it will make around $2.5 billion from this by the end of 2nd quarter 2015. Ways they could do this

 

1.) They bought Mojang for the Minecraft brand name and they are going to release Minecraft 2.

 

2.) They want to sell expansion packs/DLC

 

3.) They want to tap into University funding by charging licence fees. Minecraft is a educational tool used in Universities. They could theoretically make lots of money this way. This would of course alienate the gamer crowd, which they wouldn't care about if they only wanted license fees. Somehow I'm doubting they would be able to pull this off with Minecraft 1

 

Somehow I'm thinking the 1st one is by far the smarter move, and the one that Microsoft is most likely to make. #1 and #3 do not bode well for the future of Minecraft 1, which they wouldn't want to support. #2 would basically mean business as usual, possibly with useful features from expansion packs

 

If #1 or #3 is the plan, then the TFC devs need to figure out whether they want to adapt TFC to a open source Minecraft clone that some mod developers are thinking about making if things go bad (notably Cuchaz), or they want to try to make thier own commercial game

 

Just don't go standalone if you don't want to make a sellable product. You aren't the only ones thinking about separating from the Minecraft brand if things go bad. Join a team that will inevitably be created if things go that way

 

#1 doesn't seem plausible on the timeframe of breaking even in a year on the 2.5bil purchase. They could, I suppose, throw together a minecraft 2 in a year, but it would be expensive. The current Mojang team could certainly not do it. And even if it was not expensive, it is not going to be developed, released, and sell $2.5bil worth of copies or preorders in that same year. So long-term, absolutely agree, a minecraft 2 will probably happen under Microsoft - I just can't see MS staying with MC's pay-once-update-forever business model - but that's long-term, certainly not somethign that will earn them back 2.5bil in the next 12 months.  No, I expect their short-term focus will be on realms, expanding it and, quite probably, adding :shudder: microtransactions. And #3, I think you're overestimating the value of university contracts; it's a nice supplemental stream, but I can't see it ever being a dominant factor in minecraft's revenue equation.

 

I'm only speculating, but a deal this size has been in the works for longer than a few weeks, and I would bet that this deal was the motivating factor in the announcement earlier this summer of tweaks to the eula and the intended enforcement of that eula - the planned enforcement was the biggest part of the change; the eula itself actually became more permissive, but server operators had been completely ignoring the eula for years and mojang showed no sign of caring. As I said, I'm speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a negotiated point - microsoft would certainly have wanted to enforce the eula, and would benefit hugely from having Mojang themselves make this policy change before the sale, rather than MS having to do it themselves and take the heat for it after. Microsoft knows there'll be backlash over the purchase regardless, that kind of move during the height of it would've only fueled that even more.

 

For Mojang, Minecraft was their golden goose. The founders became very rich, very unexpectedly. Their business model was basically "come see the golden goose - lifetime pass, $15," and this model made them lots and lots of money - but their customers were taking home the golden eggs. They never imagined the secondary markets that would ultimately emerge, most notably server hosting services. Realms was them finally expanding into that market, but for them it was a way to expand their reach a bit, and add some ongoing revenue as sales, at least on pc, began to plateau as they started to run out of new people to sell minecraft to. For Microsoft, though, they're shelling out $2.5bil now, and need to make that back, so I expect they'll get serious about promoting and expanding realms, further integrating to make it easier and more accessible for the average mc player - who wouldn't know where to begin trying to start their own server. If they add microtransactions, that's where it will be - selling items, possibly limited to vanity items, that will be accessible only on Realms servers.

 

I would hope that they will limit themselves to "vanity items" - I would not be surprised to see them start selling capes, and even skins - but there's no guarantee on that. Based on my earlier speculation, the fact that the EULA announcements specifically mention capes, saying basically "don't sell capes" seems to me like fairly strong evidence that official cape sales are planned. Skins are a harder sell on PC, but then, I wouldn't be surprised if many, possibly most, players don't even know how to change their skins, and on many platforms besides PC truly custom skins aren't even an option, or weren't the last time I checked. I could easily see the xbox and playstation marketplaces having minecraft skins become items sold, not just in the minecraft store, but in other games' stores too.

 

All of that I could live with quite happily. Heck, even pay-to-win features being sold, if they're limited to realms servers and other platforms, I could ignore even if I don't approve, as they wouldn't affect the places I play at all. The point that worries me is long-term, when independent and modded servers start being seen as competition to their primary revenue streams through official servers.

 

From a business perspective, it always seemed to me the real value of Minecraft was in the model it invented, almost by accident, of being a kindof distributed, non-MMO MMO. New MMOs struggle because of the tremendous server costs, and minecraft basically bypassed that issue completely, outsourcing the hosting, management, and administration of servers to their players. The next step in exploiting that model for profit is Realms. The costs are scaled better; an MMO, to be a success, has to be ready for a tremendous player load from day 1. If they don't get that player load, they're screwed. If they get that player load and can't handle it, they're screwed. Selling individual server hosting, by contrast, is scalable and predictable.  An MMO can't, at launch, say "oh, 10,000 players, that's our limit, the rest of you will have to wait til next month to join!"1 but a service like Realms has that option on the table, because renting a personal server is a wholly separate transaction from buying the game, and doesn't prevent anyone from playing. I hope microsoft sees it this way, too, and doesn't just try to shoehorn Minecraft into a social microtransaction-based game, as I expect that would mean the slow death of Minecraft as we know and love it.

 

1They can roll out this way with closed alphas and limited public betas, but generally at some point they have to drop the limits and go live, and their best-case scenario on a sales level is their worst-case scenario on a technical level, making MMO launches a double-edged sword few companies manage to wield without auto-decapitation.

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A Microsoft statement stated they expect to break even on the deal by the end of 2nd quarter 2015

 

There is always the possibility Microsoft has been developing Minecraft 2 already, and wanted to buy the brand name and eliminate the competition

 

#3....well I basically reposted the idea from the Minecraft forums. I don't personally think this is something Microsoft would do, but other people think its possible. Maybe they are right

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I think TFC devs should start thinking about a 'plan b'. Why not croudsource a standalone TFC?

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The reason to not go standalone is because writing the game engine would be really difficult and time consuming.

 

It would be better to join a project of ex-Minecraft modders that wish to make a open source Minecart clone. Thats a much better idea than several ex-Minecraft modders each making thier own Minecraft clone

 

In the long run it would make a better game than Minecraft 1 considering it would have cubic chunks and have much better water physics

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